Pfizer, AZ, Big Pharma, those people?
Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!
- Thread starter bullybeef
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I'm not seeing this hysteria tbh. Everyone is fed up with lockdowns and restrictions, including myself. The majority of this thread is now people complaining about restrictions, media coverage, science etc. and clinging to whatever they can find on the internet that minimises the impact of Covid and any need to deal with it whatsoever
I mean, pretty sure that ‘Big Pharma’, also known as the companies who’ve designed, tested and provided life saving vaccines in a global pandemic, will be fine in the knowledge that Covid vaccines will continue to be needed for the next several years as it becomes endemic.
It’s probably not in Big Pharma’s interest for more people to die, as they’re the very people they want to sell vaccines to. Not many companies want their customers dead, as the profit margin is considerably less from cadavers.
Yep, the only place I see panic and hysteria is in here.
Well I have to disagree. I see restrictions being encouraged and expect them to be brought in and a lot of it is based on worst case scenarios etc. I don't understand the logic of restrictions on the lives of some of the most vaccinated societies in the world. If we aren't seen to be well enough protected now, then I doubt we will ever get back to normal, and it's getting me down.
Decisions need to be taken on probabilities, not possibilities. There is no such thing as zero risk in life because we don't like in a perfect world, but we need to move away from worst case scenarios and constant negativity and make decisions based on probabilities. It looks like it is probable that there will be more cases from this - that's what the evidence says. But the evidence I read does not say it is probable that this brings more severe illness. We need to focus less on cases, on more on hospitalisations, and the severity of the illness.
Martin Alvito
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Absolutely no one has those kind of vaccination rates, because children exist. We're just now in the process of rolling vaccinations out to primary school-aged children.
The cynic in me says that the cadavers are great marketing tools. Optimal profit margins probably lie somewhere near where we are at on this virus - low but appreciable risk of lethality and/or disabling symptoms, coupled with high transmissibility.
What's been bizarre about this whole thing has been the politicization of public health. It wasn't all that long ago that there was a consensus among political and media elites about that issue area.
Well yes I'm talking about adult vaccination rates. I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of the vaccinating children debate because I'm not well enough informed to know and I see arguments for and against. But the one small good thing about this pandemic has at least been that kids have largely not been at risk. I don't think they are going to have an impact on hospital rates.
Martin Alvito
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If you're asking for everyone else to share your risk preferences, you're in for a long wait. Risk preferences are fairly stable, with a significant trend towards risk-aversion as people age. Unless you're proposing some sort of euthanasia to manipulate the set of voters, or handing policy-making over to kids or adolescents, you're going to see risk-averse policy being produced by democratic societies. This is exacerbated by the fact that the set of voters is older than the general population, because young people tend not to vote.
At the end of the day, the meaningful measure is bed availability in hospitals. Run out of those, and people start dying in ways that can be hung on your government. That costs politicians votes, which they don't like. Whenever you get to the point that you're putting off elective surgeries and aggressively discharging patients to free up bed capacity, which leads to negative health outcomes, you can expect the government to do something about the problem at a social level. They can't afford the perception that they're doing nothing about that sort of situation.
I mean, wherevers there’s profit, we can assign motive and intent. Amazes me the distrust over vaccines given that alongside penicillin and the discovery of germ theory, it’s pretty much the most life saving medical advancement we’ve ever known. That there’s then profit involved, is unsurprising.
Yeah the politicisation of public health is troubling. Trump has a lot to answer for there, and the difference in the US between Dem and Rep vaccine take up is startling (especially since it would previously be the left leaning, yoga pants wearing types who would (stereo)typically be anti vaccine).
efcfanwirral
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IF this variant has the ability to shut down the NHS, and IF its doubling at the insane rate it claims then nothing is exactly what the government is doing - it's just letting it happen
Currently we're seeing a decent amount of the country in a self imposed lockdown and talk of things like football essentially self regulating and shutting themselves down, I've seen news of bands cancelling gigs because of the situation despite no official guidance to do so.
If they need to bring in restrictions, it'll be far too late and it'll mean the restrictions last longer than before.
They can't throw around the sort of numbers they are, while simultaneously doing the bare minimum. Which makes me question the numbers a bit to be honest
Martin Alvito
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I'm not sure that the causal arrow for the anti-vaxxers runs through Trump. He did, after all, get vaccinated. The rhetoric on that one largely came out of Fox. Now, if you want to talk about Trump and pandemic minimization, I'm all ears.
By and large, the bluest states were the ones with the highest vaccination rates pre-pandemic, if you look at the data for, say, MMR. IMO, the yoga-pants types got airtime specifically because they were newsworthy - they were the sort of people that, all else equal, one would expect to have vaccinated kids. There are exceptions (NJ, WA), but in general there was a fairly strong correlation between low poverty + high education levels -> high vaccination rates.
I'm definitely not proposing euthanasia before anyone wonders!!
I just think there has to be decisions taken in the round, for society as a whole. If we only focused on the best health measures we would have a never-ending lockdown and never unlock. Like I've heard discussions of school closures again in recent days and that just doesn't sit right with me. Kids are not a high risk group and need to be in school. I never thought that would become a somewhat controversial veiwpoint!
I just don't honestly think the reaction to this variant has been proportionate given the evidence of its severity, yet we've gone straight back to the narrative of health services not coping. It seems to me that restrictions are just short term measures which leave you in a never ending cycle of going in and out of lockdown. That can't seriously be the only solutions people have after pretty much 2 years of this, and I want to see a longer term plan put in action to help. People need to be allowed to live close to normal lives, especially younger people.
I'm fine with masks in indoor places where necessary, I'm very in favour of vaccination, but it's when businesses are asked to shut and people are told when they should and shouldn't socialise, that I don't feel it's right.
Yeah, that correlation is certainly the case.
Trump did get vaccinated, but he has a history of anti-vax stuff, and the pandemic minimisation that you mention, coupled with the mask stuff, he contributed to making a political issue out of something that absolutely shouldn’t have been. He was very tame in his support, as he was far too busy making up law suits about the election.
Martin Alvito
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Democratic governments almost always wait until it's too late before doing something about a problem, then try to spin the whole thing. We saw that time and again during the early stages of the pandemic. This makes sense if you think about it in the context of risk-averse, present-oriented decision-making; the tendency is to do nothing until it becomes absolutely apparent that this is a bankrupt strategy, then panic.
This behavior isn't limited to democratic governance, either; it's the standard explanation for panics in financial markets, where people broadly are blind to systemic risks, then crash an asset class once they receive a clear and transparent signal that those risks have begun to obtain, and they simultaneously realize that everyone else is going to sell. He who reaches the exit first gets out before the fire engulfs the theater, etc. - I could go on about the phenomenon.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
Tongue-in-cheek. Relax.
The problem with the school situation is that kids are a very high-risk group right now in terms of spreading the virus to the vulnerable. At least over here, parents have not been good about vaccinating their kids. It's a problem.
I have kids. I want them in school. I have not been happy, at all, with the focus on emotional welfare and stress levels over accountability. I think the schools, at least over here, have been teaching kids that they can get away with murder when it comes to actually, you know, doing work.
The restrictions are absolutely short-term measures that put a temporary lid on the thing without addressing the long-term problems. That said, the best way (short of putting radio transmitters in the vaccines and deploying people with tranq guns and vaccines, against which there are some civil liberties arguments) to address the situation is to accept that we're in a new normal for the time being and put some more permanent restrictions in effect. Eliminate/mitigate superspreader events, and we buy some time to recognize that we have an emerging outbreak and deal with it prior to having to resort to draconian measures.
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